Finding the Joy of Life with Barry Shore

Choice, not chance, determines your destiny. How you choose to respond in any given situation will allow you to have the path you want and the trajectory.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

Foreign. Hey friends, it's great to have you with Asha, Shanai and our next guest. Are you ready to love dog poop? Trust me, by the end of this episode, I'm sure you will. Especially if you hear why from our next guest. I invite you to meet the beautiful human being. Very sure. He is known as the ambassador of joy. He's a mental wellness activist, a philanthropist, a multi patent holder, but get this, he's actually a former quadriplegic who is now swimming around the world. You know, after a rare disease paralyzed Barry from the neck down, he created the Joy of Living community, the Keep Smiling movement. And in fact, his podcast, the Joy of Living is in the top 2% of all podcasts and is heard globally. He's also written a book known as A Pocket full of Acronyms. And when you go through this episode, I promise you the number of acronyms we think about or talk about, he will change your mind. It's such a powerful, moving and in fact get ready to hug us as we start the podcast. So hey, you know what, let's just get started. I invite you to meet Barry, join Ashish and I as we welcome to the Happiness Squad and rewire from Fear together. Ashish very I am overwhelmed, overjoyed to be right now. How are you two doing?

We're giving ourselves a hug. Hug.

Hey Barry, I want the acronym for HUG. Yes, you got to share the acronym of HUG with our listeners.

HUG stands for Heartfelt Unlimited Giving. 1, 2, 3.

Yay. Amazing. Well friends, hopefully you had a chance to join in and felt the energy of that virtual hug. I'm doing great, Anil, it's so lovely to be with you. And Barry, what an honor. What a joy to have you on our podcast. Friends, we were on a conversation for about 10, 15 minutes before the podcast. And I have to tell you, this is a real treat. You've got to stay till the end. I already feel it. One of many conversations that we're going to have with Barry on this podcast. But just delighted. And I know you will have your minds blown from this conversation.

I totally agree. So, Barry, you know, one of the questions that we love to ask our guests is what does happiness mean to them and how has maybe their definition of happiness changed from their younger years? And I know, I know you've told us about your age. We're not going to go there, but I'm sure it's changed. But we really want to hear about what your thoughts are on happiness.

Good day, beautiful, bountiful, beloved, immortal beings and good looking people. Now, Ashish and Anil, how can I make the categorical statement that all the tens of thousands of people that will be listening to this and sharing this are all good looking? Because by definition, when they tune into the happiness Squad, it means they're always looking for and finding the good in life. That's the definition of a good looking person. Always looking for and finding the good in life. And that goes directly to your question. Because when I live, I work and I share with people, we talk about the three fundamentals of life. Three fundamentals are wonderful because they make people happier, healthier and wealthier. Who doesn't want that? What are the three fundamentals? Number one, Life. Your life has purpose. And when you lead a purpose driven life, number two happens now, in this case a good. Number two, you go mad. Now, MAD is a wonderful acronym that stands for make a difference. You learn to lead a purpose driven life, you make a difference in life.

Yes.

Third is to uncover the power and the sequence of everyday words and terms. Simplest example, right now, our interaction is being carried all over the world. Let me think about that. All over the world, touching billions of people on the planet. And if you ask anybody, how does that happen? Well, it's because of the Internet. Well, they ask anybody what does WWW stand for? Invariably has to do with the Internet. That's true. But factually. But in our world, Ashish, Anil and Barry and everybody tuning in, WWW stands for drumroll, fanfare. What a wonderful world. And what is a word right? Www What a wonderful world. Think like that and speak like that and act like that. Guess what happens? You're in the happiness squad.

Thank you for that. And I love that. And it's so in sync with our work. Purpose. Happiness is about purpose. But not just have a purpose, but truly use that purpose to make a difference. And goes back to the conversation we were having just before. See the good, see the wonders that we are surrounded in, because it's about noticing. Because when we notice all that we have in our lives, the bounties that we enjoy, how can we not keep smiling versus walk with all this heaviness, right. Of what we have to do? We already have so much.

It's so beautiful. So I want to answer directly to your question, Neil, in terms of age. I love the discussion and the topic of age. I'm going to tell you, in my humble opinion. I've been working on this for decades. Everybody, everybody has four ages they live in all the time. Once it gets past the age of 25, chronologically, everybody lives in four ages. What are those four ages? One is your chronological age. In my case, I'm 74. Number two is your metabolic age. So Anil, he's a triathlete. Hello. I swim two miles a day, six days a week. And there's a backstory to that because I used to be a quadriplegic, but we'll talk about that. So metabolically, I'm 46. I'm younger than both of them, and mental acuity is 28, because I work with a lot of people from 18 to 30, and I can hold my own and do things and share. But here's the key. My sow is eight. Okay, Barry, sh. What's an sow? Huh? Sense of wonder. I'm an eight year old. And here's where it gets most important for everybody listening. You want to keep it somewhere between six and nine. You don't want to get into double digits because by that time the pressures come in. Yes, rules and such. And below six, okay, you're still in formation, but between six, seven, eight, nine, the world is open. And you always are saying, what is that? How does that happen? What do I do? And asking and saying, I don't know, but I'd like to know. So remember, you have four ages. Your chronological, your metabolic, your mental, and your sow. So when you can keep the sow at 8, it helps all the others.

I love that I've never heard about those four ages expressed in that way. And the fact that every one of them, right, other than the sow, we can actually, you know, there's this notion of decline with age that we don't have to accept. Look, we can't do anything about chronological. That age. Every year passes, but that's just, you know, there's such a small time in even 100 years is so small. The big thing around that chronological age, though, is as we are living longer and longer, how do we actually lower our other three ages so we can enjoy the years that we have? Right. Barry, I look at you at 74 and I can tell you there's so many 62 year olds who are like, don't. Are not doing as much. They've kind of said, you know, I am done. Now it's about my golden years or silver years, whatever you want to call it. But like metabolic, right. Through growth, through working, through strengthening, through cardio, we can lower our metabolic rate.

Absolutely. This is so important, what Ashish is mentioning right now, because I am a poster child for this.

Yes. And I want to get into that story of, you know, how you overcame. Right. Two big, two big things in your life. And I, and I read it, so I want to hear about that. Think about mental age. People assume with age comes depression, with comes Alzheimer's, dementia, all of these kind of mental declines. We can reverse these. You can reverse this if you continuously keep learning. We stop learning and hence our brains start atrophying. Our brains don't need to, we don't sleep enough and hence our brains start to have issues. It doesn't need to be. And the age of wonder, oh my God, I love that one. Because how many of us, as we get older, stop asking questions, stop wondering? In fact, we feel if you ask a question, especially if you're a leader, you think, well, I need to know the answer, so I'm not going to ask the question.

It's the opposite, isn't it?

I want to compliment on that one, Ashish, because. So I was on a coaching conversation a couple months ago and a lot of stuff was on my mind. I was talking to my coach and he's like, no, let me just give you one piece of advice. I said, sure, go for it. He's like, my invitation to you is the next time you worry, just switch that worry to wonder. And I swear to both of you, anytime I start worrying, I go, hang on a second, Wait, wait. What's wonderful about this moment? What's wonderful about this opportunity? And I now share that with folks. So anytime I see someone weird, I'm like, hey, don't worry. It's not, don't worry, be happy, but don't worry. Turn that worry into wonder and see what's possible. What's that reframe do for you? So I actually love the sow. It's Better than what we normally know, Ashish, in our consulting days.

So let me use this as a springboard for several things that you said. I just, I'm just so overjoyed that we're here together, humbled and honored. Let me tell people, first of all, what does joy stand for? Remember, unlocking the power and the sequence of everyday words and terms is the third in the three of the fundamentals of life. So joy is one of the great words of the world. And it stands for journey of you. Wow of you. That's wow, by the way, when people hear things, they say wow. What is wow? Wow stands for words of wonder, words of wisdom. Wow, women, journey of me. Because this podcast, Happiness Squad, is not about Ashish, great guy that he is, or Neil, wonderful fellow. Or Barry Shaw. Yeah, that guy. It's about you. So you becoming the best you. Because when you're the best view, you make the world a better place.

Yes.

Bridges of harmony. Enjoy happiness, peace and love. So I want to mention, first of all, the word share. Share is a great acronym. It stands for spreading happiness and rejuvenating energy. That's what sharing does. When one shares with another. You're spreading happiness, happiness, God and rejuvenating energy. Like you just said. And Neil, so wonderfully you make a shift from worry to wonder. And I'm going to just make a plug here. My latest book is titled oh, shift. And I think you actually might want to make a picture of this. Also wonderful. Emil, I don't know if you can do it while we're doing, but because the COVID is so amazing.

Oh, I love it. Oh my God.

It's happening, it's happening, it's happening. Yes, Done.

I love mk. Got it.

Oh, shift.

Got it.

Oh, shift.

I've been working with people for more than 42 years and I can tell you 97.2% of the people I work with, coaching, I'm talking high level people, they drop the F in shift and the other stuff happens. In other words, you gotta, gotta keep your F's in place and learn how to make that shift. And it's small, it's small. It's not, oh my gosh, so much to do. It's a shift in perspective. So I want to give an interesting insider perspective since you mentioned it. Wonderful. Ashish, the idea of retire. Have you heard the word retire? People talk about retirement. I'm going to give you. We know that people think retire, legs and silver years, golden years gone, whatever they want to do. But it's retire means they're going down. They're not sense of wonder. Here's Barry Shaw's take and retire. Ready? You ever heard of or seen the Indy 500 or Formula One racing? Right? You know, they're going around, they come into the pit and what happens in less than 38 seconds, they change all four tires and they go round again. That's retire. You get four new mission and you're back on the track and you're out moving and doing it. That's the way to retire new Michelins and you're out there doing it again. That's because joy is the journey of you. What are you about? You're about spreading happiness, rejuvenating energy, using your purpose. Like you said, wonderful Ashish. To make a difference in the world when you can internalize, utilize and leverage that. And what happens? By definition, you're making a difference. And I'm going to make a plug. Now we'll talk about a labor. One of the things I want everybody to remember from this podcast is the following. We're going to learn how to love dog poop. So stay to the end. I'm not going to tell you about it now, but towards the end we'll talk about how to learn to love dog poop.

Oh my God, this is amazing. So, Barry, for people who are listening, right, I doubt there are not many people who've heard of you, but for those who might not have heard of you, share with us your journey through life. Barry, your two kind of wake up moments, if you will, or kind of moments where you really tuned in, dug in deep that made you into who you are and what you are in the purpose living into. Right. Which you talked about this mission. We shared this mission of a billion. But your mission is even more. It's about how do we help people give a billion dollars away without costing them anything. How does Barry Shore, an entrepreneur, somebody who did amazing work in gems, goes through life, you know, And a successful business person creates this movement, creates this movement around helping people give a billion dollars without costing them a penny. Please share your life story because I think there is so much there for people to tune into.

Well, I'm going to tell you something. Sheesh. When I just heard you articulating that, I'm leaning in right now. I want to hear it too. Yeah, okay. I want to interrupt myself to share something with you. Most of the people that are all people listening are hearing this as an audio. Am I correct or not?

Yes.

Not seeing video. And I got to tell you something. The video should be released someday because it's so beautiful. I mean, I'm looking at Ashish and a smiling face. He's in Boulder, Colorado. I'm looking at a Neil, he's in London. I'm in Henderson, Nevada. And the idea of geography doesn't exist anymore because that's the genius of the world. We all know it intellectually. I like people to internalize it because it's such a shift. Remember, keep that up in place, in perspective, that if you can't on the Internet and not feel, oh, dear Lord, I'm living in amazing times, then you're missing out on the genius of life. Life stands for living inspirationally for eternity. We're not here just for a speck of time. Living inspirationally for eternity. So that's everybody's life. I'd like to share with you three stops along the way of my journey. And I'm going to begin with one that happened when I was 8 years old because it's so vivid for me, it's actually even more vivid right now because my dearest first cousin in the world just passed away a few days ago. His name also was Barry, and in the family he was called Big Barry. I was called Little Barry because he's a year older than me. That was something. So 8 years old, I'm living in a place called Boston, Massachusetts. I so those of you who are geographically challenged or you're listening from anywhere in the world, I mean, you could be listening, you know, from Mumbai or from Hong Kong or from Sao Paulo or even, you know, Boulder, Colorado, look it up. Boston, Massachusetts. If you don't know what it is, Boston, Massachusetts, in New England. And I'm happy to say I was raised there and it was beautiful, great place to visit. I don't want to live there. And I chose to leave at a certain age. But at 8, I was still living with my parents. I'm looking out the window and it was in December, deep December. And it was dark out because it's the sun sets at around 4:26 in the PM and looking outside and it's snowing and it's raining and this slush on the ground. That's a Boston, Massachusetts word. And it's. I mean, I'm just looking out there and I wanted to go outside and play. And I look outside and I say these words. I even hesitate to say these words now, but I have to do it for. Because of the story. I look outside and I say, what a horrible day. At that moment, my most beloved Auntie, Auntie Edie isn't visiting and she hears me and she says bearsi. That was her nickname, Bearshi. What did you say? Look outside, it's raining. It's snowing. Do you know what that means? That means that the earth is covered over and it gets a blanket because remember how wonderful the spring is and all the buzz and things. You go outside and play and it's great. It only happens because we get rain, we have snow and the sun is setting. It's such a wonderful day. And I gotta tell you, I'm 8 years old and look at auntie and I say I had no idea what she was talking about.

Yes.

But I gotta tell you, over the intervening years, maybe I should. Oh, maybe it took a decade. By the time I was 18, I was looking at the world always that way. What a beautiful day. As you said before, we're going on hello, I'm alive. That means you have an obligation to live life to the full, not just cheers nights. You have an obligation because when you do it, guess what happens? Your energy flows out from you to the rest of the world. And nothing, there is nothing in the world that can stop energy. So make it positive, purposeful, powerful plans. That was my 80 year old. It took me almost a decade and I internalized, utilize and leveraged it. Now I'm going to face fast forward to the age of 22. The age of 22. I had done a lot of things to start reading about it. Oh my gosh, this guy's crazy. But yes, I was, I loved it. I'm a college dropout. I left college after the third year. So I said it's just not happening for me. But I didn't just stay home and do something. Remember this is back in 1969. Most people don't even know this. 1969, you weren't alive. That's okay. I was, I was young, fancy free. I love to travel. I traveled all over New England, hitchhike, you could hitchhike in those days. And it was really just a wonderful, you know, I meet people. So I hitchhiked all over. I want to travel, but 16, what am I going to do? Dropped out of college. Well, I had two, $300. So I was able to get a flight from Boston to London. You hear this Anil on Sir Eddie Lakers Freddie lakers airline for $200, flew it in London one way. You could buy one way ticket in those days. And I had $100 in my pocket. They let me in. They didn't want to. They had me at the airport for hours. Anyway, I get to Amsterdam now. Amsterdam was the center of the world for people who were traveling. I mean, it was the place. It's hard to describe in today's world. From all over the world, people came to Amsterdam. It was hippie kingdom. And I'm going to just fast forward. I was there for three years and it changed a lot of my perspectives in the most positive, purposeful, powerful place. But here's what happened. We had to live. We lived on something called a crack house. Doesn't matter what. We didn't have crack. I'm sorry. I just realized it was called a crack house because it was structurally needed to be fixed and the city had closed it down. So people like us were able to get in. Okay. It's fun story. So I used to say we needed to eat. So we came up with ideas. What do you do? You have people all over the world. We went to the flea markets in Amsterdam. They had these big old Belgian rugs and most of them were, you know, ripped up and had stained. I was with smart people. We bought this stuff for pennies. Went back and we had some people capable, mostly women actually, but some of the guys. And we cut out and we made. We made carpet bags. We made pillows because we sat on the floor. We're hippies, right? And we had a. A rug that was round and we put a backing on and filled it up with foam rubber. We had pillows. We had bags and pillows and hats. Wow. And we sold them in Amsterdam and made money so we could live and eat. Now I'm going to fast forward. I said, obviously in Amsterdam a couple years. I said, okay, I'm going to go back to Boston. The one to clean up some things, maybe come back to Europe. So I flew to Boston and I said, you know, I'm going to bring this idea back. And I got a crate. I mean, a huge crate. I invested all the money I had, plus from my friends, and we bought. Oh, just, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of these things. I went back, I had a friend and asked him, would you be willing to do this? I'll tell pay you create a little factory. We had six people and we had a store called Fred. There's a great story with it. We had a store called Fred in a place called Newbury Street. Now Newbury street in Boston is the rodeo drive of Boston. And it was the hippest place around. We had 700 square feet. I lived in it as well. I mean, it was every dream of a young person doing whatever you want. They wrote me up in Boston magazine. It was a time of boutiques and we had people coming in, famous people buying our stuff, Pillows and coats and hats and I mean, great stuff. It was really. It was so fun. It was just so fun. And we were invited to go to a big show in New York. It was the boutique show. And of course you have to pay for a booth, but they gave us a big discount. They wanted us there because we were poster child for things you could do. Be smart. And so we're driving myself in one car and my friend who's the head of the factory and another car, she was driving another car. And she let me drive her car, which was a Volkswagen Beetle. Again, 19. It was this 1970, 71. And no seat belts in those days. Just driving along from Boston to New York. They call it going down to New York because it was south. And you're driving at midnight and on Saturday night going into New York City in the thruway. And hey, life happens. What happened? Somebody fell asleep at the wheel of their car. Huge Buick. And the car hurtled over the median. If you can imagine this. Hurdled over the median at 60 miles an hour and hits my Volkswagen Beetle head on.

Jesus. Oh, my God.

Seatbelt. And as they told me later, by the way, obviously, I live. You know, it's my avatar is doing all this.

Surprise ending to the story. No.

Yeah, the story is amazing because I didn't ever see the car, but told me it was an accordion. Here's the amazing thing. I never lost consciousness. My right leg, I saw, was moving, it was swinging because the femur, which is the hardest bone the body break, broke in so many places. But just about a year prior, something called the Jaws of Life was created in America for fire departments and police departments to extricate people from really serious accidents. I'm in a place called Westchester county, very upscale place outside New York City. They had the jaws of life. They extricate me again. Femur broken, glass all over my face. And I didn't lose consciousness. They put me down in a gurney and then, bing, gone. Okay. But they were able to operate on me. Get great surgeons, had no idea what was going on somehow. And I wake up, I guess a day later or so. And they put again just happened a year before. Titanium plates in my right leg that were almost 20 inches long. Eat two of them and bolts each bolt was about two and a half inches. Ten of those eight plate. And they saved my leg. They told me you might not walk again like you did. And they were picking glass out of my face for three days. But I don't even have a scar.

Wow.

And the amazing thing is through prayer therapy, mostly yoga, hatha yoga and love. Huge amounts of love given to me, by the way. An interesting dilemma because it taught me also that you need to be able to send out love as well as receive. So we have twin channels. We have twin channels in life. It's the giving and the receiving channel. And oftentimes the people is clogged. You want to unclog that those flow of channels so that you're able to give and receive like you did Naniel. Where the person went from worry to wonder. It's giving and receiving. I was overwhelmed with love and I learned how to receive it, which was in itself a great part of my life. But it took three years of intense prayer, intense therapy, hours at a time. Atha yoga. I had great teachers that were beyond description. Their love for me and what they did for me and the love that was given to me by my family and such. Because I couldn't move. It was just protoplasm. But over the three years of doing all this, having two subsequent operations to remove the plates and the bolts, I'm telling you all, I walked and I walked as well as I did before I learned how to run again. I didn't have scars on my face, did I? Thank the good Lord. Moment by moment, day by day. Yes. Yes. Was I a deep believer in the redemptive power of the relationship of I call God. You can call whatever you want. I define God as God. Garden of delight. That's what God is. You're in a garden. Life is a delight.

Hi friends. We hope you're enjoying the tips discussed in this episode. If you're on the career treadmill, seeking the next promotion, experiencing stress and anxiety, or reached the top of your career and wondering if the sacrifices to get there were worth it. Ashish and I have been there and we're ready to support you. The Happiness Squad rewire program is designed to integrate the nine hardwired for happiness practices into your day. Within five minutes form proven habits to experience more success, resilience, satisfaction and creativity. You won't be alone in your journey. Check out the rewire link in the show notes. Make happiness your competitive edge to achieve your goals. Now back to the episode.

Just a bit of reflection before we talk about your next, which was even a bigger moment. But think about this, friends. There's so many of us who are so busy running through life, building businesses, increasing our bank accounts, maybe finding in the rising bank accounts and the write ups in newspapers. Maybe we see that as a way to kind of tune in and tell ourselves that we are worthy because deep within we don't feel worthy. Maybe we look for external recognition, we look for growing back accounts, we look for who's with us. And only when we lose something, only when we have an accident do we actually explore. You know, for Barry, you had an amazing life going. And that accident tuned you into a deeper period of praying, love and therapy, which is movement right at the core of it. Taking care of your body, taking care of your spirit, and taking care of your heart. Opening your heart to give and receive. We don't need to go through an awakening moment to do that. We can do that right now. You can do that right now. This moment. You can tune to turn into those three things that had a big impact for Barry's life. It's had a big impact for me. I know till 43, I was climbing my first mountain. It was all about getting promoted, getting paid, getting recognized. You know, if clients. A meeting went well, I felt good. Meeting didn't go well, I was like, oh my God, they found out. They're never going to want me back. It was not about them, it was about me. And only as I tuned in, as I read, as I meditated, as I started living into my purpose of helping a billion people live with more joy, health, love and meaning, did it all happen. Luckily for me, it also didn't happen because of an accident. It came from a high degree of anxiety I was feeling. But it's an invitation. Friends don't wait for a life's accident to turn, to discover how to truly create joy from within and make a difference. But Barry, onto your next one, which was an Eva Biggin blow.

Ashish?

Yeah?

If you don't mind, just, just on that. No, it was reflecting as well. There's. There's something, Ashish, you and I have spoken about and I just want to share thoughts on that bit. One is it's about doing different. It's not about doing different things. It's about doing things we already do differently. And when you shared that with me and just on the back of this chat, like, hey folks, when you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you do? You open your eyes, right? You're able to see. You then are able to kind of reach around the bed, put your feet on the floor. You've got feet. You're able to stand up on your own volition. You're able to Go to the bathroom on your own. We're going to come to your story here in a moment because that was something I read about you and learned about you. I was like, I truly now value being able to go to the bathroom on my own accord. You know, it's just something that when we all wake up, we know gratitude is a very simple and powerful practice. The invitation folks, is it's something you can already do the moment you wake up. And if you do it consistently, I promise you, hand over heart, it will change the outlook you have on the rest of your day. And I just hearing your story, Barry, and hearing your reflection, actually you're right. We don't need to go through a life threatening changing event to actually feel that moment of awe. But yes, I would love Ashish back to you, back to Barry for that third story because this is something that again, continues to blow my mind. Barry, when I think about you and I hear about you, Neil and Ashi.

Again, I want to say thank you for the opportunity to be here. Thank is a great acronym that stands for to harmonize and nurture kindness. Harmonize and Nurture Kindness. I'd like to, before we go to the next piece, mention a couple of things that were fundamental in my life that caused a shift. And one of them happened when I was very young. Matter of fact, I was 12 years old. I remember exactly. I had the greatest job that any 12 year old could ever have. I sold scorecards outside of Fenway Park. Now I'm speaking inside baseball stuff. I just mentioned something probably tens of thousands of people around the world might say. Well, Barry, sure you sound like an interesting guy, but you just spoke a different language. Fenway park is one of the most famous baseball stadiums in the world. First of all, because it's still around. It was built just over 100 years ago. Now I was not selling newspapers 100 years ago, but I can tell you I was 12 years old. So that's 60 plus years ago. Oh my gosh, think about that. 60 plus years ago I was able to sell scorecards outside of Fenway park, make money by doing it, have a lot of fun and I got to go into the park and see hundreds of baseball games over the course of three years that I was there because a, the guards love me and you're a kid and things like that. And in those days, the Red Sox didn't sell out every game. It was a different time in the Red Sox history. But I learned an amazing thing that my father taught me about business. He said, how do you spell business, Barry? B, U, S, I, N, E, S, F. Right. Now, notice that the U comes before the I. Dad was me. He says when you take care of the other people, you're selling scorecards, you're making things good for them. They're getting something of value from you. Then you have a business, that you'll sell a lot of stuff, you'll make money. As long as you make sure that you're serving you first, the other, then the I gets taken care of.

Wow. Wow.

That was amazing. And when it goes, something you mentioned, wonderful Ashish. It's the ability. Yes. In therapy, which is physical yoga. I did a lot of Hatha yoga. I also learned about the eight levels of yoga. Most people only do Hatha yoga, but we are all, the three of us and everybody listening. We're doing Raja Yoga now. We're in the highest level. Highest level of yoga is Raja Yoga Serving. What do you do with this? In the therapy, I was able. I wasn't articulating it at the time, but I was able to do a. What I call, become a spiritual chiropractor. So everybody knows what a chiropractor is. You know, aching the bones are out of shape. You're not in alignment. You go to a chiropractor, they go inking in, rehearse. But you feel good, and now you're in alignment. So that's what we want to do as a spiritual chiropractor. We want our thoughts to be in good. We want our speech to be in good. We want our deeds to be good. Now we're spiritually aligned and good and is, as you said. I call this the ultimate pms Ashish. Physical, mental and spiritual alignment. When you do that. Yeah. You don't need to have Barry Shore type of stuff in your life. You do that and you get that. Shift again. It's my new book. Oh, Shift. Keep the F in place and you shift your perspective and you'll be able to internalize, utilize, and leverage probably the six most important words you'll ever hear, and these are choice, not chance, determines your destiny. Choice, not chance, determines your destiny. How you choose to respond in any given situation will allow you to have the path you want and the trajectory. So Barry Sugar had. Oh, my gosh, an accident. My business is gone. And look at me. I can't move. Thank God I wasn't there. I was in the place of. Oh, wow. Okay, what do I do now? Thank God.

Here, you're here. So, Barry, you know what I really want to hear about is that next experience that you had where you woke up one morning and you weren't able to use your limbs. And I know, Ashish, we've talked about this too. This is, it's something that changed your life, but it's the journey that you've been on since then that I think is something that's quite interesting as well that we'd love to talk more about too. But maybe just for our listeners who don't know you that well, what was that life changing experience?

Thank you Anil and Ashish. What a honored to be here and serve so many thousands of people around the world that are listening and feeling and hearing this. Imagine if you can standing up in the morning, Halen Hardy, able to leave tall buildings in a single bound. And that evening being in the hospital totally completely paralyzed. And it was not from an automobile accident, it was not from a spinal injury. It was a rare disease which I never heard of the day before that took over my body and rendered me what's called a quadriplegic. Quadriplegia means you're paralyzed from your neck down. Nothing in my body moved. I could only communicate by blinking my eyes. I was 144 days in the hospital. I was two years in a hospital bed in my own home. I couldn't turn over by myself. Four years in wheelchair. I had braces of both my legs from my hips to my ankle. And that was progress, thank God. Today I'm able to be vertical and ambulatory with the help of a seven foot walking wand made for me by a Zen master, by the way. So I'm a triped, not a biped. I can't walk up a stair by myself. I can't walk up a curve by myself. And I've helped 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Could you hear my voice? Positive, purposeful, powerful, pleasant. It's all because of one word. One word. This word is smile. Smile. What's that? Smile is a great acronym that stands for seeing miracles in life every day. Seeing miracles in life every day. Anil, you mentioned about opening your eyes, moving and putting your feet over the side of the bed standing up. I was in my bed completely paralyzed at home for two years. Plus I was after that as well. But for years. My meditation for two years was the following. I want to be able to sit up on my own and put my feet over the side of the bed. That was it. I wasn't thinking about running a marathon, triathlete, swimming. I no idea. I want. My goal was to Sit up and put my feet over the side of the bed. Took two years. I didn't. Wow. Because they will do it. And that was a while. It still is a while. Because yes, eight minutes to get up the morning when my eyes open, I say thank you. I do. I say thank you. I sing it. My wife says, please shut. Okay. But we're married 45 years, so she knows me. You know, it's not just now, but I'm. I am able to sit up with my feet over the side of the bed. Now I can tell you I can't just stand up on myself. I need help. I have things that allow me to stand up and I use my 7 foot walking on just to get the balance. Doesn't matter. I can be vertical, ambulatory. I can put my feet over the side.

Wow.

Now I'm just going to plant the seed and God willing, we'll do another session. We'll go deep into it. But through series of situations, I was able to do therapy. This time in the water, aquatic therapy. So again, you know, everybody knows this intellectually. When you get in the water, you're actually 67% of your body weight is removed. So you can.

Yep.

But when you walk on the earth, especially somebody like myself, the fear of falling is there all the time now for me, thank God, over the years, because this was 19 years ago. It's 55 at the time, so it's less so. But do I still. I fall still and it hurts. Hello. But I've managed to work with certain things. My point is, in the water, you don't. So I was blessed by having a neighbor who was the greatest aquatic therapist in all of America. How do I know that? Because he told me so. I love working with people who understand their abilities. I do aquatic therapy. Okay, that's great. He came over and we talked because he saw me in the wheelchair outside. They were taking me out for a stroll or something. And he comes over. I heard what happened. I'll have you out of that chair in a year walking. I said, I love it. I'll listen to anybody who's father, Dad. I say, how you doing? Because I'm the greatest aquatic therapist in the world. He said, the world. But I'm saying just America. The point is, through that process and it took years getting me in the water, moving my limbs, things like that, I was able one day to put my arms over my head on my back and swim a backstroke. And that changed everything in my perspective. And again, I am positive, purposeful, powerful and Pleasant. But this ability to be in the water. Water is the essence of life. We know that because we're what, 69, 73% water. But to be in the water and to move in the water and have the feeling of the water come in and go out and feel like it's rebirthed every single time. I can't even get into the pool that's near me right now. It's an amazingly beautiful aquatic center, except with the help of something called the Hoyer lift, because no staircase, because I can't go down the stairs. I'm still paralyzed from the waist down, even though my upper body is remarkable because I work with it. And I have special flotation devices on my legs. And I use paddles because my fingers don't close. I use a snorkel. But I'm going to fast forward and we'll talk about it later, maybe next session. I now swim two miles a day. I do this six days a week, and thank God I've been doing it for years. I have at this moment over 9356 miles, because I record every single month. I'm doing it for years, more than a third of the way around the world. My goal is to swim around the world.

I am sure you've done it, and you will do it in terms of that total distance. I just want you to know, as a triathlete, the swim is my weakest discipline. If I ever were in a lane next to you, please do not race me, because I know you'll take me over without a doubt. And I would love that, because I'd be like, okay, at least this guy swims more than I do. So I'll take that as a reason for why it's happening. But no, just that disposition again. I just. Friends, like, when you hear that story and you hear where Barry is coming from, Barry, the way you even like, it's not like swimming for you is easy. I'll tell you hand over heart. I could go swimming tomorrow if I wanted to. But, you know, I struggle to motivate. You know, I'm like, oh, do I? Should I? Should I not? I hand my hawk. You just do it, despite what you need to do in order to make it happen. And friends, like, that's the beauty sometimes, that motivation. You think you need it, just do it. You know, the more you think about it, the less you'll do. Just jump in. And I promise you, once you're jumping in the water, you will love it, like you said. And Barry, I just. I am now, at the point where I need to hear the story about loving dog poo. Because if I don't hear that story right, that's been bugging me for the last 40 minutes. So I don't know about our listeners. So if you could please kindly share that story. I want to know why I should love dog food.

Okay, so let's just do this in 90 seconds. Because everybody must learn to love dog food.

Why?

Again, I love. Remember the three fundamentals of life that make you happier, healthier, wealthier, and we guarantee it or your money back. Hear that is, number one, your life has purpose. Number two, you are mad. You make a difference in the world of life. And the third is to unlock the power and the secrets of everyday words and terms. And nothing more every day than dog poop, right? But I love learning, learning to love dog poop. What does dog poop stand for? Dog poop stands for doing of good. Power of one person Doing of good. Everybody loves to do good, right? We want to do it consciously and conscientiously. Power of one person. If you knew the power that you really have, you would never, ever allow negative thoughts, ever allow negative situations. Never allow anything to disturb your positive, purposeful, powerful, pleasant outlook on life. You will become a flower. Now, I'm going to make a big statement here. Most people have heard of Nelson Mandela. Most people heard of Teresa. Most people have heard of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. These are names of powerful people. Guess what, Ashish and guess what, Anil? Guess what, Barry. Most people, even those listening, and you're the best of the best, you don't realize that you have the same power as each one of those. You have the same power to make a difference in the world as Gandhi. Come on, Barry Shaw, what are you talking about? I'm just a regular guy. I know what it means to be a regular guy and to be touched by the Lord, to have purpose that makes a difference in the world that keeps flying and moving. We'll talk about maybe the next time.

Yes, but I love this, Barry, you know, and you remind me. I love dog poop. Doing of good. Power of one person. I love it because it's so much, you know, it's in sync in what we fundamentally believe. But is also. I am a huge admirer of Jane Goodall. And it was at the heart of the Roots and Shoots movement that she created. Because what she saw was a loss of hope in young kids. And she wanted, through that program to create identities that everyone matters. You can matter no matter how young, how old, how able or as people say disabled. It does not matter. You can do good. And if all the good that you can do is just give somebody a smile and your presence that is for many people good enough. Because for somebody who is not seen, just your seeing them and giving your smile can be that. But we can all do good doing of good. Power of the People Barry this has been an amazing, amazing conversation. We will record a second one shortly because I want our listeners to benefit from how you are helping give away a billion dollars without costing people anyone your joy. The Power of Smile we want to talk a little bit about the shift, the book that you are the power of the shif right down there and then t the Power of the Shift. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for this amazing conversation.

Barry, before we leave, can we do two things? Can we do a little hug? Not just us, but all the thousands of people listening and we'll give a blessing. You ready?

Yes. Let's do that.

Let's tell everybody what hope stands for. Hope stands for helping others progress every day. Helping others progress every day. You do it as you said, Ashish and Anil, with a smile, with a recognition of the other. Helping others progress every day. So HUG stands for heartfelt unlimited Giving. So on the count of three. One, two, three. And our blessing from Rishisha Neil Barry is go forth live. Exuberantly. Spread the seeds of joy, happiness, peace and love. Go mad. Go make a difference.

Thank you.

Wow Barry. Lots of love. Big hugs brother.

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